


PROMETHEUS RISING

by writing_practice



Series: Love After the End of the World [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Blood, Car Accidents, Car Chases, Corruption, Endgame Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Endgame Zayn Malik/Liam Payne, Established Zayn Malik/Louis Tomlinson, FWB Zouis, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mild Gore, Physical combat, Zayn Malik & Louis Tomlinson Friendship, Zayn’s POV only for this prequel, allusions to sex, dystopian au, we will get Louis’s POV in the main fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:54:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29005632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_practice/pseuds/writing_practice
Summary: “Zim,” Louis hisses, barely loud enough to reach his ears.Zayn turns. Louis is halfway up the stairs, motioning again for him to follow.Go,Zayn mouths, whipping his hand in a circle because he can’t watch Louis’s back if Louis is bloody facing him.~Zayn's had two months to adjust to the darkness that swallowed the world whole. The tie of soulmates isn't needed when he can read Louis as easily as the safeguarded books they carry, a bond that crystallizes every time he watches Louis' six.They survive in silence and shadow, but even the best laid plan burns under the relentless glare of the enemy spotlight. Desperate to claw their way back to the light, how much is Zayn willing to risk when the collateral is a life he never meant to gamble.
Relationships: Zayn Malik/Louis Tomlinson
Series: Love After the End of the World [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2127852
Comments: 16
Kudos: 31





	PROMETHEUS RISING

**Author's Note:**

> Prometheus is the Titan god of fire in Greek mythology. The champion of mankind, he defies the gods by giving fire to humans and creating civilization.
> 
> A huge thank you to my beta, Zanni, as always, for crafting this prequel into a molten masterpiece, to Lily for igniting the spark in my mind, and to Aoife and Stef for your truly unending, constant flaming support and excitement over this piece. You're all priceless fire diamonds to me.
> 
> This is a prequel to _Love After the End of the World_ , my full post-apocalyptic soulmates AU coming in April as part of the 1D Big Bang Fest! You'll find more info on it [here](https://mercurial-madhouse.tumblr.com/post/632780918104408064/love-at-the-end-of-the-world-by).
> 
> As always, these are _characters_ only and in no way would I ever want anything in this work of fiction to be construed as fact.
> 
> Enjoy this first glimpse into the world and two of the characters!

~

Metal doesn't burn.

Against the drab backdrop of the massive shipping crate, even Louis in his black _The Future is Now_ tee and cream-collared denim jacket looks more to Zayn like a spark of fire than the flaming torch painted beneath the Prometheus Industries logo on the side of the crate.

Metal doesn't burn.

But Louis isn't metal.

The door they just came through is still cracked, neither of them daring to close it and alert the industry agents by sound. Several agents go racing past on the opposite side. Still panting from the run, every nerve in Zayn’s body singes. The sheer refusal to give away their position overpowers his instinct to flee and locks his limbs. He remains as silent and frozen as Louis is next to him until the final footsteps die away.

In his peripheral, Louis glances up the stairs that lead into the loading bay, sharp eyes calculating. There’s no other way to get out, not anymore. He knows what Louis’s about to do and frustration flickers in his gut when Louis motions for him to hang back, one finger raised, so Louis can take point like he always fucking insists. 

It’s not the time to argue with his best mate’s stupidly protective habits. He waves Louis forward, watching until Louis eases onto the first step with silent feet before Zayn’s focus narrows to the crack in the door and the empty corridor beyond.

“Zim,” Louis hisses, barely loud enough to reach his ears.

Zayn turns. Louis is halfway up the stairs, motioning again for him to follow. 

_Go_ , Zayn mouths, whipping his hand in a circle because he can’t watch Louis’s back if Louis is bloody facing him. 

Zayn turns his attention to the door again. No one is going to come up behind them, not on his watch, and if only one of them is getting out of here it better be the wanker he calls his best friend.

Louis hisses his name again and throws a glare when Zayn flicks a look over his shoulder. With an almighty eyeroll Zayn takes one more look down the empty hallway before bounding onto the stairs, Louis _finally_ getting his arse moving as they both race up the flight.

There’s no doors above. The stairs simply give way to the concrete of the main deck of the loading bay where shipping crates like the ones he and Louis were just hiding behind are lined in an endless maze.

Louis darts off the stairs onto the higher level.

A large body slams into Louis’ side. Fear-laced adrenaline cleaves through Zayn. The agent grappling with Louis is all muscle but Louis manages to keep to his feet, thrown backwards by the momentum, shoes skidding across the floor. They disappear from view.

Something heavy slams into a hard surface with a sickening thump. Louis’s choked cry echoes through the vast expanse of the loading bay and spurs Zayn into action. Hands fisting the railing he stumbles after them, heaving himself up the stairs with his entire body, every second an eternity when he can't reach Louis fast enough. 

Halfway up the staircase Zayn’s step falters with his stuttered pulse as he finally regains sight of Louis. 

Pinned against a tool-lined wall, Louis’s eyes are wide in shock and unfocused, mouth open as he gasps soundlessly for air like the wind’s been rammed from his lungs. The brute grinding him into the wall is massive, but his arm is nowhere close enough to Louis’s neck to cut off his air and debilitate him so he can’t lash out. Louis has the skill ** _—_** they spent hours sparring every night until Zayn was certain of it ** _—_** so he knows Louis can _fight the fuck back,_ but he’s not. 

Zayn’s hand flies to his side but he doesn’t have his knife to throw because they would never have gotten past security with them. Every fucking second Louis isn’t fighting back drives more desperation into Zayn’s muscles and he can’t get to Louis fast enough because he can’t fucking _fly_. Something's seriously wrong about the way Louis's arching against the wall with feeble shoves at the agent on top of him.

Vision tunneling as he pitches between confusion and frenzy, Zayn finally flings himself over the top stair only for another agent to block him from Louis. Zayn ducks instinctively and the fist swings over his head. Dropping to a crouch Zayn uses a foot to sweep the man’s legs from beneath him. He’s already snapping to his feet and lurching towards Louis by the time the agent hits the ground. 

Agony is slashing across Louis’s features now and he’s clawing at the wall, struggling against the arm crushing his chest. Zayn reels when the image clicks into place. 

Louis’s a butterfly being nailed alive to a viewing board. 

They _can’t_ have him. He _has_ to get Louis out of here.

Louis’s eyes flutter. Zayn’s heart stutters. He throws the invisible knife of his voice, the only thing he has, across the distance.

“Hey!” Zayn’s angry shout is frantic in the rebound. “He’s not the one you want, you fucking bastard! He doesn’t have it!” 

He only registers his own words when they ricochet back to him, but his wild admission is enough. The agent pinning Louis falters, his grip loosening as he turns towards Zayn.

Louis sucks in a harsh gasp of air that echoes with the same desperation as Zayn’s confession.

Zayn only makes it two more steps before the agent is staggering back clutching his groin, then knocked out by Louis’s fist smashing into his face.

Louis falls away from the wall, knees smacking into the cement and exposing two nails sticking out of the wood. Louis’s blood stains the surface, dripping down the iron rods like the residue of an explosion. The sticky crimson talons shine gleefully, blood oozing towards the dazed lad on his knees below.

The sight of his best mate’s blood incinerates the air in Zayn’s lungs. Lurching, he skids the final few steps to Louis’ side. Louis stares uncomprehending at the empty ground past the unconscious agent, lips parted for a breath he never seems to take.

Zayn’s hand finds Louis’s arm to sling it over his shoulder, get Louis back, stop the terrifying sway of his body, get Louis _up_. 

Louis’s eyes lock onto him.

Zayn hesitates.

His hand falls away from Louis’s arm. He grabs Louis by his hips instead and propels him up from behind, forcing Louis to find his feet.

“C’mon! Tommo, go!”

Zayn scans the loading bay as they put distance between themselves and the door to HQ. There’s a car parked just outside the furthest open garage door. Every car battery fried on the same day months ago, but they race for this one. Zayn only leaves Louis’ side once they make it to the vehicle. He dashes around to the right, praying the driver’s door is unlocked.

“Get in!”

He throws open the door, frantically searching for keys and hoping some idiot left them in there.

Louis falls into the passenger side and slams his door shut.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Louis finally growls, voice laced with thinly disguised agony. He sucks in a breath. “You fucking bastard, why the hell did you tell them that?”

Zayn’s jaw clenches at the spears of accusation. He doesn’t stop looking for the key.

“Because I had to.”

Louis’ shoulders are hunched forward as he throws open the glove compartment and centre console, searching too. He’s as frantic as Zayn, but there’s a tremor to the hand not gripping the dashboard and keeping him steady. 

“You didn’t fucking _have_ to and now they’ll be fucking looking for you!”

“They’re already going to be looking for us!” 

Zayn can’t find the key.

He slams his palms on the steering wheel. 

“Fuck!” He scans over the dash, fumbles blindly in the footwell. “The fuck did you want me to do, Lou? Just fucking leave you there like that? The hell were you thinking!? I _told you_ we can’t fucking trust anyone and you didn’t fucking listen to me!”

“You bloody arse. How the hell else were we going to get the fuck inside?!”

Where the _fuck_ is the God-damn _key_?

Zayn wrenches the visor down and a set of keys falls at him. Too much adrenaline is coursing through his veins and he fumbles to catch them. They bounce off his palm and land between his seat and the centre console. Smashing his hand into the slim opening, Zayn digs to get enough of a hold to pull the keys out but they keep sliding further from his fingers.

_He can’t reach the keys._

The inner doors to the loading bay slam open, agents pouring through as the last of Zayn and Louis’s lead time evaporates. They both freeze.

“Move!”

Sucking in air through his nose fast enough for Zayn to hear, Louis shoves Zayn out of the way and drags his hand between Zayn’s seat and the console. Zayn splits his attention between the agents in the distance and Louis, drumming his fingers frantically against the wheel. Damn Louis and his fucking hero complex, but Zayn’s never been more grateful for how slender Louis’s fingers are than now. 

Louis flicks his hand up. The keyring is caught on his ring finger and it flies off towards Zayn. Snatching it out of the air, Zayn slams the largest one into the ignition and the car roars to life. He hasn’t driven in months but of course these fucking bastards have working vehicles. 

The engine revs under him with a growl. He throws the car into reverse. 

A man thuds onto the front of the car. He and Louis jerk. The man sprints around the headlights to Zayn’s door.

Zayn surges to slam his door lock down, his foot stomping on the gas as the car catapults backwards. The wheels scream. 

Zayn’s mind clears of conscious thought. Louis’s a live wire next to him, their pulses humming the same frequency. Searing adrenaline ignites them in a moment of instinct. They move as one.

Zayn slams the pedal flat, wrenching the wheel with both hands as Louis engages the handbrake in perfect sync. Rubber squeals as the car forcefully whips around, tossing the agent from the front and leaving them faced towards the open lot.

Another faceless agent slides across the bonnet with a violent slam and catches onto Louis’ side mirror.

Louis’s door flies open. A third agent lunges into the car and grabs for Louis, trying to drag him out. 

Louis’s name gets caught in Zayn’s throat for the second time when Louis lets out a short shout of surprise. Zayn lunges with his hand and heart, catching a fistful of Louis’s denim jacket right as Louis latches onto Zayn, grip tight enough to radiate pain through Zayn’s arm. 

He watches in horror, struggles to maintain his hold as Louis twists sideways and kicks out at the man who has a grip on his leg. The solid, sickening crack of Louis’s foot connecting with the man’s nose has Zayn flinching. 

“Hurry! Go!”

Zayn heaves Louis towards the centre of the car before he lets go and grabs the wheel, releases the clutch and hits the gas.

Their escape is through an entire car park and too fucking far. Hand over hand on the wheel he jerks the car to knock men off, Louis’s open door swinging wildly. More agents flood the area as multiple vehicles rev to life around them. Louis’s grip on Zayn’s arm vanishes and he glances left to make sure Louis’ still in the damn car.

Gasping and grasping at the dash as he’s thrown by the turbulence of Zayn’s maneuvers, Louis grabs the open door as the car veers, face draining of blood from the effort when he slams it shut.

“Fucking go, Zim! Go!”

“I’m going! I can’t go any fucking faster!” 

“Go fucking faster anyway!” 

Agents swarm the loading bay and Louis whirls to look at them between the seats, biting back another cry. Only a whimper escapes but it spikes right through Zayn’s chest.

“Will you stop fucking twisting around? I can see them in the rear fucking mirror!”

The entire back window of the car disintegrates in a resounding crash as a bullet launches through the car, smashing the rear mirror. They both duck, Zayn’s fingers spasming on the wheel.

“Jesus fuck!” Louis’s breathing as heavily as Zayn and Zayn can hear the pain the adrenaline can’t cover. “The fuck are we, America?! Where the fuck did they get guns?!”

Louis twists away to look out his side window and Zayn gets a good look at his back for the first time.

Louis’s blood has soaked the denim. The jacket is weeping red tears from two ragged gashes in the centre of his back, right between his shoulder blades.

Zayn’s fists are white-knuckled on the wheel as he swerves to get back on course. He can’t keep his head down and drive and keep them out of the way of the bullets and keep from throwing Louis savagely around the cabin and get them out of here at the same time. The crash of tailing SUVs smashing into machinery that Zayn barely swerves around and the incessant jolt of bullets slamming into the car are overwhelming his senses and Louis is _fucking twisting_ again to look behind, ducked down as best he can.

“Zim, we’ve still got two on our six.”

The mirror next to Zayn shatters, the rattle of bullets relentlessly striking metal resembling the endless tick of a stopwatch and matching the rate of his racing heart.

Zayn can’t do this. 

He has to.

The gate out of Prometheus is closed ahead, barbed-wire fences meeting in the center where massive metal beams block the only chance they have to escape. Agents swarm over the upper walkways on either side.

There’s no choice.

“Tommo.” Low. Steady. Not how he feels. He swallows. “Hold on.”

Louis whips his head to the front, eyes widening.

“You fucking serious?”

“What else are we going to fucking do!?”

They lock eyes. Louis’s are wide. There’s pain in them.

It’s enough to shore up Zayn’s resolve.

The mirror on Louis’s door cracks.

Louis clicks his seatbelt on as fast as he can, bracing.

Zayn knows he’s playing chicken with fate and no one ever plays this game and wins. He sucks in a breath, braces, and mashes the pedal into the floor. 

The car shivers. The vibration rocketing their flimsy metal cage mirrors the shudder clawing down Zayn’s spine. Every fucking nerve in his body is tearing at his fingers, self-preservation and molten terror screaming at him to turn the car from the oncoming gate. 

He tightens his grip on the wheel until his knuckles ghost white. 

His door window explodes into a million shards of jagged glass that pierce the entire right side of his body.

Zayn ducks.   
Swerves.   
The car careens left.  
Louis’ screaming his name—   
cuts off.   
The smack of a skull against glass.  
Crunching.  
Screeching of metal on metal before it all disintegrates and—  
  


“Zim.”

Zayn jerks. Disorientation clouds his vision when his eyes fly open at the quiet, but firm, whisper of his name. His hand darts up to close over the warm fingers curled into his coat and Zayn blinks, squeezes the hand in his grip, blinks a few more times, and slowly pieces together exactly where he is. 

The warm, muscled pillow cradling the back of his head shifts and then Louis’s face hovers over him, blocking out the bright moonlight shining through the broken window and leaving Louis’ silhouette bathed in shadow.

“Alright?”

The word is as carefully quiet as the first. Zayn can’t read his expression but Louis’s thumb, the only finger Zayn hadn’t caught in his instinctive grasp, sweeps a slow arc over Zayn’s sternum. Louis no doubt already knows exactly what Zayn’s mind was forcing him to relive.

Zayn nods out of habit, free hand falling to his hip to feel the familiar line of his knife. Once he knows it’s there, he pushes the heel of his hand into one eye and lets himself track their surroundings.

Dilapidated office building. The break room of this one has a sofa. The first time they’d stumbled upon this place, he and Louis had moved the sofa to the wall nearest the window and had taken the cushions off to lay them on the floor. As far as beds go, it doesn’t rate, but the cushion keeps most of his torso off the ground and does a lot to stave off the midnight chill seeping through the unforgiving floor and lingering in the May air. Louis’s leg as a pillow helps even more.

Despite the busted window, it’s one of the more comfortable spaces they’ve found to rest, even if nowhere in the Perimeter is safe, especially for them.

“Time s’it?”

Louis’s nose twitches once at the question. He wiggles his fingers until Zayn releases his hold, then eases upright enough to tug the sleeves of his coat and hoodie up his right arm, staring at the second of the two watches strapped like manacles around his wrist, the one with the hands still moving. 

In the quiet—and it’s always too quiet—Zayn can hear the tick of that second watch. Because Louis refuses to remove the first with its cracked face, this second one is sat too far back on Louis’s wrist to look right, choking the bird tattooed on his arm so the immortal march of time oozes like a steady, eternal drip of blood. The clicks pulse against Zayn’s skull and distort his brain waves in a constant countdown to insanity.

He doesn’t want to know what will happen to either of them when the countdown ends.

“Still early for your shift, but you were twitching like a fucking drunk puppet trying to slit your bloody strings off. Reckoned whatever sleep you were getting wasn’t doing you much good.”

Louis’s low words are loud enough to break through the ticking strangling Zayn’s senses and Zayn grunts.

“I’d rather be a wasted fucking puppet.”

Louis’ sharp eyes flick to him, brows drawing inwards as something flashes across his irises and Zayn quickly adds, “I’m stuck living with you after all.”

If scurrying between deserted buildings and finding the nearest soft spot to lie down that puts a roof over their heads can be called living.

Pushing up and shifting into a sitting position next to Louis, Zayn doesn’t bother to put any actual space between them. With his bicep pressed against Louis’s, he feels Louis lean into him as he shifts his own weight, shaking and tucking the leg Zayn had just been sleeping on to work out the kinks.

The sofa cushion under Zayn’s arse puts the edge of the sofa in the centre of his back, far below his shoulder blades, and he takes a deep breath, pushing against the hard line.

“I miss anything?”

He doesn’t need Louis’s responding snort to know the answer to that. If something had happened he wouldn’t have slept through it. Their sleeping position wouldn’t have allowed for it even if Louis had wanted him to.

“Quiet as a fucking bomb drop.”

Wincing, Louis sits straight just enough to draw his rucksack into his lap, shoving his tattered book back inside. Zayn’s jaw ticks in time with that watch when he sees the wince but he keeps his lips firmly shut, gazing towards the broken window again instead.

On most nights it’s too dark for Louis to read the one book he owns, the one book he carries everywhere with him, the one book he guards more closely than anything else he has left in life. Even Zayn isn’t allowed to touch that book.

They don’t dare waste matches on something like light and it’s rare for them to spark a candle if they even find one to begin with. They’d be thick to set up a beacon for the company to hone in on them. It’s hard enough already to lay low. They’d learned the hard way that the company agents constantly patrolling the Perimeter have night vision goggles and neither of them are willing to give up one of the few comfortable places they have in this nightmarish hellscape they call home.

Louis sits up and slots against Zayn’s left side again.

A rip, a flick, a swish.

A match flares in the moonlit darkness and Zayn turns from the window just as Louis lights a cig between his lips.

Louis takes a long drag, head tipping back.

A beat. Two beats, then Louis blows the smoke into the ether. The moonbeams get stuck in the cloud, weave and bend like the briefest glimpse of the unseen demons always lurking just outside of Zayn’s vision. The smokescreen dissipates and the air goes deceptively still again. Zayn tenses before he can stop himself.

With a low chuckle, Louis hands the cig to Zayn, empty fingers falling to Zayn’s thigh when Zayn takes it.

They share the smoke in silence. Zayn knows being silent is still not something Louis is used to doing. Being quiet Zayn can do. He’s one of the quiet ones. But not Louis. Pressed arm to arm as they are, it’s not hard to feel the tension emanating from Louis, the way his lips part to take in the cigarette like he wants to say something only to breathe out empty smoke instead of words.

Zayn gets the last drag this time, snuffing out the stub’s final light on the dirt and debris-covered floor. Louis’s hand is still on his thigh and Zayn tips until his temple finds Louis’s, eyes closing. This way when his words aren’t even a whisper vibrating his vocal cords, Louis will still hear him.

“Should get some sleep.”

Louis doesn’t say anything right away, but finally he nods, squeezing Zayn’s thigh one more time. It’s one of the few comforts Louis will give himself. Zayn knows him well enough to feel the hold for what it is: an anchoring support Louis only allows himself to take when he knows it gives just as much to Zayn. Louis’s always been subtle with the actions that speak to how he really feels, but to Zayn they scream louder than anything else.

Maybe that’s why he finds so much support from the touch too.

Louis sits forward, palm curving over Zayn’s cheek as he studies the healing cuts peppering the right side of Zayn’s face and neck. Facing the window as Louis is, the moonlight catches the darkness that flickers over Louis’s eyes. Licking his lips, Louis smoothes his thumb beneath one of the larger cuts carving the ridge of Zayn’s cheekbone. 

Zayn stills. Tender moments like this are as rare as the wanker they come from, and he won’t ruin the chance to savour this glimpse behind the wall. 

Louis opens his mouth to speak.

Instead his forehead bumps against Zayn’s as his hand falls away, the moment dissipating like the smoke long gone from their lungs.

“Wake me if, yea?”

Louis doesn’t need to explain further or wait for Zayn to answer. Forced to learn to survive in the silence, they don’t rely on words to understand each other anymore. Zayn shifts once Louis lets go of him, crawling over Louis’s lap so Louis can take his place without having to move too much.

The wince on Louis’s face is deeper as he eases carefully onto his side facing Zayn, using Zayn’s thigh as his pillow. He normally sleeps on his back, but the wound is still too raw and this keeps the pressure off it.

The moon highlights Louis’s features as he settles in to sleep. Zayn can see the moment each muscle relaxes, hears it when Louis’s breathing evens out.

It doesn’t take long at all. Louis needs to heal. The nails had pierced deep into Louis’ skin, right between his shoulder blades and dangerously close to his spine. In his struggle to break free of the agent they’d gouged lines two inches long through his flesh.

Thinking about the injury makes the bird between Zayn’s own shoulder blades itch. He cracks his spine and scratches the tattoo just to keep it from flying away.

Sleep is the only thing Zayn can give Louis in this abandoned wasteland to help him heal as fast as possible. After letting them get away from Prometheus HQ, Zayn thinks there’s only so long fate is going to let them lie low before their luck runs out. Louis needs to heal _fast_. 

Annoyance adds to the worry already clenching around Zayn’s heart. Louis will give him hell for it in the morning, as he always does, but Zayn’s still going to make sure Louis sleeps as long as he can before it’s too risky for them to stay here anymore. 

What Louis _needs_ are sutures. He _needs_ someone with medical skill if it’s ever going to heal proper at all. But all he has is Zayn and the first aid kit they’d found in the first abandoned public building they could find that Zayn had prayed was safe enough because Louis had to stop.

There’s only so much Zayn can do and they both know it. He’s inadequate. The only reason Louis even let him help is because Louis can’t reach the wounded flesh himself.

Zayn’s fingers had been shaking with a noxious mixture of adrenaline and exhaustion when they’d finally been safe enough for him to evaluate the damage. He’d tried to clean and close the jagged lacerations as best he could in the middle of a ruined café. 

Louis had never made a sound.

Zayn had been forced to read his pain in hitched breaths, in the way Louis’s fingers had curled over the sides of the table he’d been face down over when Zayn’s careful touch came too close, in how the sculpted muscles in his back had tensed until Zayn had moved hands coated in Louis’s blood to massage down his spine, gripping Louis’s hips again to just hold him in place. 

Under his touch Louis had slowly relaxed. With Louis’s first deep breath, Zayn’s fingers had stopped their trembling.

Louis' second watch had ticked five times like a countdown, long enough for Zayn to squeeze and Louis to nod.

Zayn had left bloody fingerprints on Louis's hips. When he’d pushed all his weight down over the injury to get Louis's blood to stop flowing, his throat had closed over the bile that had welled up. Louis had choked off a low moan, no doubt trying to keep them safe from detection, biting down on a dry bit of his blood-soaked shirt and sucking in air through his nose through the worst of it. Zayn's stomach had churned with a vile concoction of loathing and frustration and powerlessness. His own stinging gashes from the shattered car window had felt so superficial and there’d been nothing he could do to bring Louis any relief from his pain except grip Louis’s hips again the moment his blood had stopped flowing.

To steady them both, to tell Louis he wasn’t going to hurt him, to tell him it was over. To say more in the silence than he’d ever be able to put into words just as he’d tried to do in the loading bay.

It hasn’t been long since that day, but he still can’t get that look in Louis’s eyes out of his mind. The look when he’d been on his knees in front of a wall covered in his own blood that had made Zayn hesitate. He’d never, _ever_ seen that look on Louis’s face and he’d prayed to a God he didn’t believe in that he’d never see that look again. 

In the moment Zayn had shifted his hold because he couldn’t stomach dragging Louis up like that. He needed to see Louis pick himself up, had to know Louis would _get the fuck back up_.

As surely as that look in Louis’s eyes, the solid dig of sharp hip bones into his palms is seared into Zayn’s mind.

Zayn relives that moment in more than just his memories. Every time Louis lets him clean the wound he has to stop and hold on just as he had that first time to find stability. For Louis, for himself, he doesn’t know.

Sometimes he thinks that grip is the one thing keeping Louis from igniting, all the tension winding up in him spiraling towards a sure detonation that only Zayn can stop. But every time Zayn’s palms press into Louis’ skin he’s right back in that car careening towards a solid gate, gambling with fate when the collateral was a priceless life he never thought he’d have to risk. 

Louis still has his jacket too. They aren’t mental enough to get rid of what little clothing they have, but they could only scrub so much blood from it. The jacket is a mere echo of what it once was, permanently stained. Zayn’s eyes skate over the tarnished collar to the tousled mess of hair above. 

A single curl has fallen into Louis’s eyes again.

This damn curl doesn’t make any sense.

Louis’s hair is longer than it’s ever been. He hasn’t cut it since Lights Out two months ago, when the world stopped. And it’s straight, a straight fringe sweeping over his forehead, straight strands covering his ears and neck, but not this one curl. It doesn’t seem like it should belong to Louis, this single rebel lock of hair curling across his right temple to kiss his cheekbone like it’s constantly whispering for Louis to not forget about it.

It reminds Zayn of graffiti. He tries to replicate the swirl in his drawings and the graffiti he paints for Louis, but he never seems to get it quite right.

He tenderly catches the curl between two fingers and tucks it out of Louis’s eye, careful not to wake him.

Zayn eases the tiny sketchbook out of his own bag. It’s only A5 paper, but it’s the book he guards, the book he never lets out of his sight, the book he doesn’t let Louis see even if Louis knows exactly what’s in it.

With one hand he flips through the book, pausing to gaze at the single feather he’d sketched from memory a few days ago. It’d caught his eye first in that café, nestled between a blood-spattered green paper cup and the first aid kit he’d used to bandage Louis, wild and delicate and powerful in its fragility. 

Sometimes he thinks all it would take is a feather to figure it all out and fix everything. If the bird on Louis’s arm had one more feather maybe it could fly from the choke of time. If the bird on Zayn’s back had one more feather, maybe he’d have it all figured out.

How they’re going to get through this. How they’re going to survive long enough.

He’s sick of the destruction, the abandoned carcasses of buildings, broken windows and ragged edges and burnt shells of vehicles. The pain of not knowing if his family is alive. The sketches in his book are glimpses of the good he _has_ to believe still exists, captured in graphite so they’ll never be lost.

He and Louis don’t share matching soulmarks, but they are cut from enough of the same constellation for whatever’s between them to feel good. Easy, even. Every time Louis’s hot against him and Zayn’s getting off on the slide of tattoo-covered muscles and the throaty whisper of their panting breaths mixing in the quiet, there’s no way to know if all they’re doing is speeding up the countdown. But it’s the only way he knows to relieve the pressure. For the both of them.

Staring at the paper feather, Zayn massages the soulmark etched below his left collarbone and lets the soft wisps of the penciled edges calm him, heart thumping beneath his fingertips. 

He flips the page. He’s only got three blank sheets left.

Careful not to jostle Louis, Zayn sets the sketchbook on his free thigh. His left hand settles on Louis’s hip as he starts sketching the familiar angles of his best mate’s face softened in sleep. 

In drawings he can have it all figured out. He can smooth out the line from between Louis’s brows and the crinkles at the edge of his eyes from the pain that haunts him even in sleep. He doesn’t need to erase the shadows clouding Louis’s features or the fading garish green bruise peeking beneath his fringe from connecting with the car window because in drawings they were never there to begin with. 

In drawings Zayn’s not so fucking powerless.

Louis jerks, unsettled in his dreams and Zayn slides his hand beneath the layers to the bare skin of Louis’s hip. He squeezes until Louis stills again.

The sun begins to rise. The sketch begins to take shape. His lungs loosen and he breathes like he’s let his guard down, but he hasn’t. He can’t. Not when they won’t truly be safe until this ends.

Louis’ second watch ticks.

Zayn doesn't dare think of what will happen when the countdown stops.

~

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated. I'd love to hear from you here or on my Tumblr, [@mercurial-madhouse](https://mercurial-madhouse.tumblr.com)! You'll also find the link to my rebloggable Tumblr fic post [here](https://mercurial-madhouse.tumblr.com/post/641587669406777344/prometheus-rising-5k-mature)!


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